Refusing to make a choice is in and of itself a choice or so I've been lead to believe by Rush. I don't think those were his exact words though, your paraphrasing isn't familiar to me. Bringing order to synthetics is bringing order to the chaos of organic invention and creation. Synthetics themselves aren't chaos but their creation is.

Here's the exact quote:

Shepard: I need to stop the Reapers, do you know how I can do that?
Starchild: Perhaps. I control the Reapers. They are my solution.
Shepard: Solution. To what?
Starchild: Chaos. The created will always rebel against their creators. But we have found a way to stop that. A way to restore order.

Refusing to make a choice is a choice only in a sense that you chose to not make a choice - pure semantics. Replace "chose" with "decided". Replace "to make a choice" with "to select one of provided options". By refusing to choose you create your own way.

Creation == order. Destruction == chaos. Synthetics destroying Life == Chaos. Life creating Synthetics == Order. The Truth is in the middle - The Balance.
Getting rid of Chaos is as bad as getting rid of Order. Both need to exist in Balance. Total Order destroys free will, slows evolution and progress, world's in stagnation. Total Chaos destroys everything as soon as it's created. Balance - things that require Order (creation of things) have it, things that need to go to make space for new things are destroyed with Chaos.

Life itself is a conflict of Chaos vs Order - it's a vicious cycle, and it can exist only when those two are in Balance. A little bit more Chaos and life dies, a little bit more Order - evolution slows down - life dies because it fails to adapt to ever-changing environment. Same can be said about everything in the universe, like Stars. Stars burn "fuel" (Chaos) to create light and heat (Order). Unbalanced star is gonna go super nova.

Reapers are agents of chaos (they destroy old things). Strachild's plan is that of Balance. Relays and Citadel are agents of Order (they direct new things).

Starchild should be looking for a solution to reach Balance. But he says he wants to restore Order, Order he himself weakened. He wants to get rid of Chaos. It is impossible task, since he uses Reapers - agents of Chaos. And it is a stupid task - because you shouldn't get rid of Chaos.

The funny thing is - Balance is self-achievable. It doesn't require outside help. It's when someone interferes from one of the sides then it needs help from the opposite side. To balance the fucking "budget". All Starchild does - would've been achieved eventually on its own. Starchild achieves Balance Artificially, by employing too much Chaos and the same amount of too much Order. -+=0. And the reason for all this - the false premise that Synthetics will wipe out all life in the Galaxy. But that is impossible. Life'll find a way, even if Synthetics destroy all the planets in the Galaxy. In time new planets would be formed and Synthetics would evolve so much that they wouldn't care. But they don't care even "now".

And btw, who does he thinks he is, deciding what's best for the Galaxy? Maybe it's what Universe intended? Life creates Synthetics who replace life - becoming (Synthetic) life of their own. What's wrong with that? It's clear Synthetics are more fit for exploring the universe.

Geth didn't want to kill anyone. Heretics were created by Sovereign.
Prothean Synthetics were oppressed the same way Geth were oppressed by Quarians. Even more, considering the aggressive totalitarian nature of Prothean Empire.

And the funny thing once more - Protheans won the war with Synthetics! Without any help from Reapers, perhaps even against Reapers wishes, who helped Synthetics.

There's so much stuff even in ME3 that makes all this Synthetics vs Life talks - nonsense.

Except they are now wilfully controlled by an ascended Shepard. Unlike before when they were "independent" actors or better said they were thought to be independent but really under the control of a hidden process (the star kid) in the background. So depending on how good or bad your shep is, you'll have different outcomes and the reapers can now be a force for good or for evil.

Shepard may very well die when you pick destroy. Where does it say that he doesn't? The cutscene doesn't prove or disprove anything. It was a teaser and a bloody delicious one but it doesn't say anything either way.

Yeah we do not know if Shepard is alive but having such a scene where he apparently breathes is just silly after picking destroy. If you take Catalyst´s logic as fact then even the Quarians who have lots of kibernetic upgrades would suffer from the destroy ending. It´s just badly explained by the Starkid to be honest.

Control is kinda risky for the galaxy tho because a Renegade Shepard for example wants to protect the galaxy but not like a paragon one as a benevolent "leader" instead he wants to guide them with an iron fist. This could be problematic if the entity that was once Shepard goes "mad" or starts to turn onto the galaxy like the catalyst did with his creators (Leviathans).

So yeah even if Shepard was full Paragon I´d doubt that the galaxy is a safe place with the Reapers still around.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 02:37 PM ----------

You summed my thoughts up perfectly ag666 . I don´t think the synthetics that Javik referred of willingly wanted to destroy the organics back in their time.

The Protheans were "warlords" and so they liked to oppress races and bent them to their will and to their empire.

BTW: The galaxy does not need the reapers nor the catalyst !! Life balances itself out even without the "aid" of such machines. Originally the catalyst was created by the Leviathans and you know they were a bit crazy to be honest. They saw the entire galaxy as minor and thralls and therefore wanted to protect their thralls.

Well that this protection ended up with the Reapers was absolutely the fault of the megalomaniac Leviathans.

I found something interesting that proofs that the majority of the Geth never wanted to destroy anything:

"Approximately three centuries after the Morning War, the geth were approached by the ReaperNazara, also called Sovereign. It offered them technology that would aid them in achieving their goal, in exchange for their assistance in capturing the Citadel and letting the Reaper invasion begin. The majority of the geth dismissed the offer, deeming it better to accomplish their goal with their own technology rather than be dependent on another race’s technology. These geth discarded what they called the "superstitious title" of the Reapers, and simply called them the Old Machines. A small percentage of geth, however, accepted the Reaper’s help. Henceforth these geth were referred to by the mainstream geth as "heretics". They were allowed to peacefully leave the main geth network, and aid Nazara and its turian agent, Saren. The heretics came to revere Nazara as a god, the pinnacle of synthetic evolution. Unknown to them, Nazara was repulsed by the heretics' worship of it, though it recognised their value as tools to facilitate its goals. They aided Nazara and Saren in many engagements, such as the attack on Eden Prime, and the Battle of the Citadel

Using Sovereign's influence over them, the rogue SpectreSaren Arterius commanded an army of geth in an effort to take over the Citadel and release the Reapers from dark space. The geth formed the bulk of Saren's forces, following him because they believed he had the means to find the Conduit and bring back their "gods". In addition to providing ground troops, the geth also crewed (or tended to) Sovereign.
However, the geth did not realise Sovereign was actually insulted by their "pitiful devotions" and saw them merely as tools. After the Protheans broke Sovereign's hold over the keepers, and the keepers evolved so that they only accepted commands from the Citadel, the Reaper realized organic races were difficult to control. It found the geth to be suitable replacements as servants, and exploited their religious beliefs. Saren claimed that, although they were viewed disparagingly by Sovereign, the geth were valuable as tools, and would therefore survive the Reaper invasion because they were useful. The example of the geth inspired Saren to prove organic races could also be useful to the Reapers. He hoped that, instead of harvesting them, the Reapers would spare the organic races of the galaxy, even if that meant they would only survive as slaves."

The long-term goal of the geth is the construction of a "mega-structure", a massive mainframe capable of simultaneously housing every existent geth program, thereby maximizing their collective processing capacity. As of 2185, the geth have already been in the process of constructing the mega-structure for 264 years. Legion suggests the closest conceptual analogue is a Dyson sphere and, as it poignantly states "no geth will be alone when it is done." It believes that Sovereign promised the heretics a Reaper body to serve as such a mega-structure.

Synthetic or not synthetic, at some point a given civilisation (organic or synthetic) will dominate the other, and result in no diversity. No new life form, no new synthetic form. A Galaxy reset mean that many new species can appear.

What would have happened if Prothean had been given another 50k years? Sure they didn't lose to their synthetic, but every other races lost to Prothean. They were accepting "lower" species as a part of they empire given that they still had plenty of space, but after a given time even earth, thessia, tutchanka would have looked as very viable place to live for "true" prothean and it seems like Prothean would'nt mind making room for themself, perhaps keeping a couple Asari to whore around.

In the early stage of ME1, the only clue we had about the Reaper was their name, and how it's linked to agriculture already made a lot of sens. My view at this time was that they were like galaxy gardener, preventing a single plant to spread and prevent every other flower from blooming. When winter comes (brace yourself), a gardener usually has to cut a lot, remove weed that spread during the summer, to ensure that the garden in the spring will keep the high diversity of species, flowers, and colors that made it beautiful.

The only things that still bother me is that everything is centered about synthetic, to me Reapers goal make sens as a whole, promote life diversity by preventing homogenization of the galaxy be it by synthetic of organic.

And this is where your premise falls short. Destruction is not inherently chaotic and is not equal to Chaos. If you demolish a building to make room for another building and you use engineering to do a controlled implosion that doesn't make the destruction chaotic. Destruction != Chaos.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 07:20 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Megaira

Yeah we do not know if Shepard is alive but having such a scene where he apparently breathes is just silly after picking destroy. If you take Catalyst´s logic as fact then even the Quarians who have lots of kibernetic upgrades would suffer from the destroy ending. It´s just badly explained by the Starkid to be honest.

Control is kinda risky for the galaxy tho because a Renegade Shepard for example wants to protect the galaxy but not like a paragon one as a benevolent "leader" instead he wants to guide them with an iron fist. This could be problematic if the entity that was once Shepard goes "mad" or starts to turn onto the galaxy like the catalyst did with his creators (Leviathans).

So yeah even if Shepard was full Paragon I´d doubt that the galaxy is a safe place with the Reapers still around.[COLOR=red]

Why? The EC shows us that while Shepard is ascended he still retains some sense of who he was and his former self. The being that became reaper controller was ground in who Shepard was is still based on Shepard. You can't make blanket statements like Reapers wouldn't make the galaxy safe while at the same time accepting that the reapers are a tool. They are a tool to solve a problem. But like any tool it depends on who is wielding them.

Input | Output. In this case if shep is an assshole then expect the reapers to be assholes as well. If your shep is a good guy I don't see why the reapers couldn't be a force for constructive efforts.

As for the ending scene it's place is to do exactly what you saw at the end of the avengers although much more ambiguous. It's a teaser. Like the Thanos or the gang eating schwarma. It means to leave you with questions unresolved. All good works of art do this actually. In fact if you look through the history of narrative art you'll see that many of the greatest works of art are filled with holes and ambiguity and it's this that gives them mythological status.

Event Description: Losses of industrial capacity have caused shortages of specialized weapons on several fronts. Population centers must be reclaimed for us to rebuild munitions factories, and N7s will lead recon and assault teams to prep the way for regular infantry to take the territory.

Individual Goal: Earn 75,000 points of damage using an assault rifle on any map at any difficulty. Points are cumulative across matches. Extraction not required.

The Zha'til (the Geth of Javik's cycle) didn't turn against organics until the Reapers showed up and subjugated them, as far as I remember.

The Protheans were battling machines prior to the arrival of the Reapers. It is never stated who those machines were so it could be the Zha'til and the were taken over like sovereign did with the geth prior to the Reapers arrival. But the Protheans still thought they could win against the machines they were fighting until the Reapers arrived at the Citadel and effectively cut off their empire at its head.

Also the Protheans didn't unite the galaxy under their rule until they encounter a machine threat.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 02:59 PM ----------

Originally Posted by ag666

And btw, who does he thinks he is, deciding what's best for the Galaxy? Maybe it's what Universe intended? Life creates Synthetics who replace life - becoming (Synthetic) life of their own. What's wrong with that? It's clear Synthetics are more fit for exploring the universe..

He is a AI created by a race, leviathan, to preserve organic life by finding a solution to the inevitable conflict that always happened with organics and synthetics. The Catalyst was created with several goals which ultimately lead to the downfall of the galaxy. It may be an AI but it is still a shackled AI restricted in its actions. Which is why the Crucible works because we pump so much energy into it that we rewrite its core programing opening up 3 new paths and we prohibit it from stopping us from choosing those paths.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the natural evolution way filled with machines and organics wiping each other out. It is just the leviathans thought it was a problem and created something to solve it. Which brought about the cycles.

And the funny thing once more - Protheans won the war with Synthetics! Without any help from Reapers, perhaps even against Reapers wishes, who helped Synthetics.

But that has nothing to do with the cycle. It wasn't that organics could not win. Or synthetics could not win. It is that eventually the war would be repeated no matter who won. The Leviathans saw it, the Reapers saw it. There are millions of years of the same stuff happening over and over and not just because of the Reapers and their cycle. Though the probably use mostly the same tactics each time (indoctrinate a faction to be pro reaper, indoctrinate machines to weaken/occupy the organics.

The thing everyone over looks is what if the Catalyst was just a bugged program? One that once started couldn't be fixed because he killed you. Everyone is always so hung up on OMG STARCHILD without every looking at the bigger picture that an AI implies about the whole cycle.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 03:03 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Megaira

So yeah even if Shepard was full Paragon I´d doubt that the galaxy is a safe place with the Reapers still around.[COLOR=red]

But control isn't about make the galaxy safe for all time to come. It is about making the galaxy safe from the cycle. By having Shepard control the Reapers it ensures that the cycle will never happen (because Shepards consciousness of fighting and stopping the reapers is forever imbedded into all of the Reapers). That doesn't mean that the new Shepard controlled Reapers won't kill or destroy. It just means they won't cull all life in the galaxy and preserve them in reaper form just because of an AI's solution.

For all we know in 10,000 years the Controlled reapers could be used as enforcers of the law and we fight as a criminal organization based on a derelict omega against this law.

Originally Posted by Megaira

The Protheans were "warlords" and so they liked to oppress races and bent them to their will and to their empire.

The Protheans didn't create one massive empire until the threat of Machines. While the Protheans were always warlords and control freaks they only did what they saw necessary for survival. The Protheans prior to the machine conflict and the Reapers were sort of like the Reapers themselves. As in they thought of themselves as the guardians of the galaxy.

They protected the lesser races as is noted when they protected the Asari from invasion. (To stop another race from getting the resources on Thesisa)

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 03:09 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Megaira

I found something interesting that proofs that the majority of the Geth never wanted to destroy anything:

Which isn't really proof of anything with the endings or the "cycle". It wasn't always synthetic life that was the problem. It was, as the geth have shown, sometimes how organic life will treat and perceive the synthetic life.

Last edited by rhorle; 2012-12-06 at 08:09 PM.

"Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

The Protheans were battling machines prior to the arrival of the Reapers. It is never stated who those machines were so it could be the Zha'til and the were taken over like sovereign did with the geth prior to the Reapers arrival. But the Protheans still thought they could win against the machines they were fighting until the Reapers arrived at the Citadel and effectively cut off their empire at its head.

I actually just had the conversation in-game with Javik on the Zha'til and he didn't even mention the Reapers. Now I'm wondering where the hell I heard they didn't turn against organics until the Reapers came. lol

I actually just had the conversation in-game with Javik on the Zha'til and he didn't even mention the Reapers. Now I'm wondering where the hell I heard they didn't turn against organics until the Reapers came. lol

"Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

Event Description: Losses of industrial capacity have caused shortages of specialized weapons on several fronts. Population centers must be reclaimed for us to rebuild munitions factories, and N7s will lead recon and assault teams to prep the way for regular infantry to take the territory.

Individual Goal: Earn 75,000 points of damage using an assault rifle on any map at any difficulty. Points are cumulative across matches. Extraction not required.

Reward: Commendation Pack

An excuse to use my N7 Valkyrie.

They ask me why I'm bringin' - A baby into battle - That's really irresponsible - And getting them rattled
I say "give me a break - Get off of my back damn, it" - I didn't learn parenting - My daddy was a planet

And this is where your premise falls short. Destruction is not inherently chaotic and is not equal to Chaos. If you demolish a building to make room for another building and you use engineering to do a controlled implosion that doesn't make the destruction chaotic. Destruction != Chaos.

Destruction is always inherently Chaotic. No matter what one uses it for. No matter how one does it. You use Chaos to destroy a building, and then use Order to restore the Balance by building something new.

Never speak about Chaos alone, or Order alone. They are intertwined in eternal conflict. The Balance is at stake.

Limiting Chaos effect by Order - you maintain balance. You Chaotically destroy the building, but thanks to Orderly made explosives, destruction doesn't go out of hand.

I realize that this philosophical system may be hard to fathom. Chaos may look like Order, or Order like Chaos. Just look at the deeds at the time they happen, and ignore reasons and consequences. Destroy == Chaos. Create == Order. Balance is achieved when Chaos ~ Order.

Event Description: Losses of industrial capacity have caused shortages of specialized weapons on several fronts. Population centers must be reclaimed for us to rebuild munitions factories, and N7s will lead recon and assault teams to prep the way for regular infantry to take the territory.

Individual Goal: Earn 75,000 points of damage using an assault rifle on any map at any difficulty. Points are cumulative across matches. Extraction not required.

Reward: Commendation Pack

Now thats gonna be easy. I was planning on ripping gold apart with my Typhoon on destroyer this weekend anyway.

warp field to weaken its armor, let it close, then tech armor! - Turian hipster

Event Description: Losses of industrial capacity have caused shortages of specialized weapons on several fronts. Population centers must be reclaimed for us to rebuild munitions factories, and N7s will lead recon and assault teams to prep the way for regular infantry to take the territory.

Individual Goal: Earn 75,000 points of damage using an assault rifle on any map at any difficulty. Points are cumulative across matches. Extraction not required.